THOUGHTS AND IDEAS ABOUT ASIA

Op-eds

Taiwan’s NGO policy:Lessons for Asia Nowadays the international community hears about the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the context of cross-strait relations and the up-coming Presidential election. Taiwan today is a country that not only inherits ancient Chinese culture and art, including the original system of traditional hieroglyphs (unlike the simplified version used in mainland…

Who’s the Real Threat to Japan? The recent agreement on the planned national security legislation between the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its coalition partner, Komeito, is hardly a cause for celebration. While the latter convinced the former to include a “break” mechanism that would require Diet’s approval before allowing SDF dispatch, it hardly…

Is Kazakhstan’s Nazarbayev the Lee Kwan Yew of Central Asia? When Singapore was expelled from Malaysia in 1965, the prospects for the newly-orphaned country were not positive. Weak, lacking resources, deeply divided along racial fault lines and surrounded by hostile neighbors, during his 25-year rule Lee Kwan Yew was nonetheless able to transform the small…

Essays

“Internationalization” of National Universities in Japan: Critical Reflections With increased global student mobility alongside recent initiatives taken by the Japanese government, there has been an upswing in the number of international students studying in Japan. “Internationalization” in this fast-changing world is seen as a way to ‘gain brain’ and meet the challenges that Japanese will…

The Caution of Collective Memory: Why Japan’s 1947 Constitution is Worth Fighting for With the 3/11 disaster, Fukushima nuclear crisis and a limping economy all at its back, Japan’s crisis timeline could never have been worse since the end of World War II. Needless to say, winning the bid for 2020 Olympics ought to give…